Thumbs -- Published March 26, 2013

Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton is co-author of legislation aimed at bringing a bit more overview to a prison realignment system some say is putting too many dangerous criminals back on the streets.

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By The Record

recordnet.com

By The Record

Posted Mar. 26, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By The Record

Posted Mar. 26, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton is co-author of legislation aimed at bringing a bit more overview to a prison realignment system some say is putting too many dangerous criminals back on the streets.

Realignment, a response to federal court orders to reduce the state's prison population, has diverted into county jails thousands of inmates believed to be low risk. Not all, it turns out, are low risk, as a number of well-publicized incidents indicate.

Under a bill by Eggman and Republican Assemblyman Ken Cooley of Rancho Cordova, the judiciary would have the authority to send violent inmates back to state prison.

That makes sense to us.

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Some 6,000 more students could be added to the California State University system next year under a budget proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The additions come thanks to passage in November of Proposition 30, which will add about $125 million to the CSU system.

Of that total, about $39 million will go for additional instructors, $38 million for pay increases for staff and faculty (but not the college presidents), and $48 million for mandatory health care and energy costs.

If approved, this marks a welcome turnaround after years of higher tuitions, class cuts and pay freezes in the system.

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Lodi Unified officials will require student athletes and those participating in extracurricular activities to sign a social media contract aimed at curbing excesses that are part and parcel of tweets and blogs and Facebook timelines.

The contract puts the kids on notice. It doesn't keep them from exercising their free speech rights before the fact, but it does make them responsible after the fact.

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Crews began spraying chemicals to control the waterway-clogging hyacinth last week.

That's good news for Delta boaters and other recreational users because the effort to control - don't expect elimination - of the alien water weed usually doesn't begin until July 1. Last year, a paperwork problem delayed control efforts until mid-August.

Now the state has a five-year permit that should reduce paperwork, allow earlier spraying each year and better control an invasive weed that blankets waterways if left uncontrolled.

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They must be doing something right at San Joaquin General Hospital, where for 10 consecutive years 100 percent of the surgeons in training have passed the rigorous tests for board certification.

The achievement, unmatched by any other surgery training program in the nation, is a credit to the hospital, the program's director and the quality of the doctors attracted to the program.

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North Dakota could soon achieve the dubious distinction of becoming the nation's most restrictive state in terms of abortion rights, this four decades after Roe v. Wade established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

North Dakota legislature earlier this month passed and sent to the governor a bill that would ban a woman from having an abortion as soon as the heartbeat of the fetus is detected. That can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, a point at which some women don't even know they're pregnant.

This bill is one of a half dozen anti-abortion proposals in the Peace Garden State. Lawmakers there also passed a bill banning abortions for gender selection or because of a genetic abnormality. Additionally, they are considering a total ban on abortion at 20 weeks, two measures that define "personhood" as starting at conception and one that would require abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges.

What's going on in North Dakota, whittling away at abortion rights through waiting periods, mandatory counseling, bans on insurance coverage and restrictions on doctors, is part of a renewed effort in several states to restrict a long-standing constitutional right.